Tag Archives: Religion

Chapter-a-Day

Walking the Talk

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Walking the Talk (CaD Lk 13) – Wayfarer

“In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!”
Luke 13:33 (NIV)

I’m excited this Christmas to see the movie Freud’s Last Session with Anthony Hopkins. It’s an adaptation of an amazing little one-act play that imagines a conversation between a dying Sigmund Freud and a young Oxford professor named C.S. Lewis in 1939 London. Sadly, my friend Kevin and I were preparing to produce the show in conjunction with a college theatre department a few years ago until an individual got us cancelled. It remains a huge disappointment we never got to do the show.

There are several scripts and books that have been written over the years imagining conversations between different historical figures or imagined events around historical characters. I’ve always found the genre fascinating. When I was just a kid, the youth of our local church performed a play in which Pontius Pilate is placed on trial for Jesus’ murder. Members of the audience acted as the jury. If I remember correctly, my father was the Jury foreman. They acquitted Pilate.

Sadly, the death of Jesus was historically used as a reason for antisemitism. In our current wave of public and institutional antisemitism, I feel it important to acknowledge this sad historical fact. It is rooted in the Roman Emporer Constantine’s decision to make Christianity the official religion of Rome in the early fourth century. It was one of many bad things that happened after the organic Jesus Movement became the Holy Roman Empire. Constantine planted the seeds of antisemitism that would lead to centuries of Jewish persecution by the institutional church.

As I have studied the final days of Jesus for many years, I’ve concluded that the death of Jesus was the result of a perfect storm of antagonist power brokers representing the earthly kingdoms of politics, commerce, and religion. (A few years ago I presented my review of Jesus’ arrest and trials in a Good Friday message, FWIW)

A few chapters ago, Luke records that Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” Jesus has been traveling toward Jerusalem and is getting close to His destination. In today’s chapter, Luke foreshadows the three key players who will have Jesus crucified.

It begins in the first verse of today’s chapter as Jesus hears news of the Roman governor’s cruelty. Pontius Pilate represents the Empire, and in the political powder keg of Jerusalem, Pilate is not afraid to use force and violence to quell issues. There was a group of people from Galilee who ended up creating trouble. Their offense is not known, but Pilate had them slaughtered and their blood was mixed with their sacrifices. It was a highly blasphemous act of imperial power, intended to send a message to the many zealots who sought to defy Rome.

The next episode Luke records is the religious leaders who continue to antagonize and oppose Jesus. He heals a crippled woman on the Sabbath day of rest, and the religious leaders call Him out for it. Jesus turns the tables on them and Luke records that Jesus’ “opponents were humiliated.” As Jesus continues to humiliate and threaten the power and wealth of the religious establishment, those religious leaders with the most to lose are motivated to have Jesus eliminated.

But Luke also records that “the people were delighted with all the wonderful things He was doing.” Even some of the religious establishment became fans and followers, and Jesus was drawing crowds that numbered in the thousands. The crowds alone were a threat.

At the end of Today’s chapter, Luke mentions the third piece of the unholy trinity of power brokers who will have Jesus’ killed. Some Pharisees who were fans and followers of Jesus told Him to change course and avoid Jerusalem because Herod had already put a price on Jesus’ head. Herod was the regional ruler who had John the Baptist murdered because John had antagonized Herod and turned the crowds against him. Herod had heard the rumors that Jesus might just be John the Baptist risen from the dead. Herod had learned from his father, Herod the Great, that remaining in power means the swift and violent elimination of potential threats, like having all the baby boys two years or younger slaughtered because of rumors the messiah had been born in Bethlehem.

Jesus, however, remains “resolute” in His trek to Jerusalem. He has no illusions about what is going to happen. In fact, everything that He does and says in public only pushes the hands of these political, religious, and commercial power brokers. Jesus states that He must press on to Jerusalem “for surely no prophet can die outside of Jerusalem.”

Jesus knows He is going to Jerusalem to be killed.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about my post yesterday in which Jesus implores me and all of His followers to approach our earthly realities in context to the larger eternal realities of God’s Kingdom. Jesus is walking the talk.

How can I follow in His footsteps today?

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Jesus, the Impudent Dinner Guest

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Jesus, the Impudent Dinner Guest (CaD Lk 11) – Wayfarer

When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.
Luke 11:37-38 (NIV)

Along my journey, I have found that people across the spectrum, from antagonistic critics to well-intentioned church members, have an ignorant perception of Jesus based on what others have said about Him or how religious institutions have portrayed Him. It’s one of the reasons I continue on this chapter-a-day journey. As I return again and again to the primary source material, it never fails to inform me in often mind-altering ways.

For example, in today’s chapter lies an episode about Jesus that I’ve never heard directly addressed in a sermon or a book.

Jesus is making His way toward Jerusalem, stopping in towns and villages along the way to do His thing. He teaches, heals the sick, and casts out demons from the possessed. He is, however, facing increasing criticism and opposition. The greatest opposition is coming from the institutional religious authority over the very faith Jesus is from and represents.

In one town, a Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner at his house. The Pharisees were a powerful organization within the larger Hebrew authority system. Made up mostly of prominent, wealthy, and connected businessmen, the Pharisees presided over local religious matters along with lawyers who were experts in the Law of Moses. Think of a cadre of the most wealthy and influential businessmen in your town or city having authority over commerce and religion and civil affairs. Being invited to a Pharisee’s home to dine with his lot would have been a huge deal.

Jesus accepts the dinner invite and becomes arguably the most impudent and offensive dinner guest in recorded history.

First, Jesus refuses to wash before dinner. To this day, you’ll find washbasins out in the open in the restaurants of Jerusalem for the orthodox to ritually wash before eating. Jesus’ refusal is a slap in the face of his host, and He does it in order to make a point. Jesus looks at this local cabal of mucky-mucks and says:

“Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.”

This is rude. Jesus is insulting His host and his fellow dinner guests. In the culture of Jesus’ day, this was socially unacceptable. It’s hard to even put into today’s terms. It would be like taking your drink and throwing it into the face of your host. The Pharisee and his colleagues would have been appalled and immediately defensive, thinking “How can this country preacher from the sticks say I am not generous to the poor?! He doesn’t even know me! I always give exactly the tithe that God’s Law dictates I must give!”

Jesus raises the ante on His boorish behavior by reading their thoughts and continuing:

“Woe to you Pharisees! Yes, yes, I know you dutifully give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs to keep the letter of the law, but you neglect the heart of the law: justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.“

Jesus doesn’t wait for their reply to this before He raises the stakes even higher:

“Woe to you Pharisees! All you care about is having VIP seating in the synagogues and having people in town treat you like you’re all that and a bag of chips!”

There, dining with the Pharisee is a lawyer, who is not technically a card-carrying member of the Pharisee club, but a prominent colleague and social ally. The lawyer comes to his insulted host’s defense, calls Jesus to a social point-of-order, and informs Jesus that when He insults his Pharisee host, Jesus is insulting him as well.

Jesus quickly goes all-in to insult the lawyers as well.

“And you lawyers, woe to you! You load people down with your authoritative lists of ‘dos and don’ts’ that make their lives more difficult. You feel all powerful, telling people what to do, but then you sit there feeling smug and won’t lift one finger to help them.”

While Luke doesn’t provide the details, I don’t think Jesus got anything to eat. In fact, Luke implies that the Pharisee and his friends threw Jesus out of his house, or perhaps Jesus simply walked out, because the next thing the good doctor writes is: “When Jesus went outside, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely.”

In the quiet this morning, I find myself meditating on both the fact that Jesus acted in a rude and socially unacceptable manner and that in 2000 years since we rarely address or acknowledge this fact.

In His dinner party rant, Jesus provides a clue to both His anger and His impertinence. He states that from “Abel to Zechariah” (which is like me saying “From Genesis to Revelation”) it has been the institutional religious fundamentalism and authority thing that His host and friends represent that led to the murder of the prophets God sent to the Hebrew people throughout history. And, the handwriting is already on the wall. Jesus told His disciples in yesterday’s chapter: This same system will kill Him, as well.

I’ve observed along my life journey that the institutional religious fundamentalism and authority thing can be found amidst all of the world’s major religions. I believe that it’s what happens when sinful human beings turn religion into a kingdom of this world. I have always found it fascinating that it was the one thing that Jesus opposed so vehemently that He was willing to break every socially acceptable custom in order to call it out. Ironically, with acts like His impudent dinner behavior, Jesus pushes His opposition to call His bet, go all-in themselves, and kill Him.

The further I get in my journey, the more contrast the eyes of my heart see between the ways of God and the ways of the institutional religious fundamentalism and authority thing. And, the more my heart desires to pursue the former while joining Jesus in opposition to the latter.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Jesus’ Way

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Jesus' Way (CaD Lk 10) – Wayfarer

[Jesus] replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Luke 10:18-20 (NIV)

Not long ago, I mentioned in a post that Jesus’ teaching was directed, not at nations or human institutions, but to individuals. It was directed to me. This is just one example of God’s message through Isaiah when He says, “Your ways are not my ways.”

Human institutions from Government to businesses to universities to churches operate on a system of top-down power structure. For human beings, this can work relatively well depending on the level of corruption, pride, and greed that exists in the upper levels of the system. The messiah that those of Jesus’ day were expecting was simply another version of this top-down paradigm. They expected the messiah to show up, wipe out evil through domination, put the Hebrews in charge, and exert salvation via righteous tyranny.

But, “your ways are not my ways” God had already proclaimed.

In today’s chapter, Jesus exemplifies the paradigm of His ways both via example and via parable.

Jesus appoints 72 more disciples and sends them out by two-by-two as as advance teams to the towns where He would be visiting. Their charge is to humbly stay with whoever will put them up and eat whatever they are given. No extra clothing. No purse full of money for emergencies. They are simply to do what Jesus did. Heal the sick, drive out demons, and proclaim the same teaching they’d heard from Jesus. If they were not welcomed, they simply wiped the dust off their feet and went to the next town. No demands. No force. No threats. Act humbly, live simply, and love mercifully.

Then a teacher of the law approaches Jesus. He is part of a human religious institution that operates like all human institutions. The elite and privileged at the top institutional food chain demand submission from the masses below. They drive obedience by threat of expulsion. They squash dissension and threats to the system (especially threats to the power and authority of the elites at the top of the system) with swift retribution, violence is used if needed.

The institutional lawyer asks Jesus what the law demands. Jesus quotes the two commandments that Jesus tells the crowds sum up God’s law: 1) Love God. 2) Love your neighbor. The institutional lawyer then asks Jesus to define “neighbor.” This prompts Jesus to launch into the famous story of the Good Samaritan.

What is lost on most casual readers is that Jesus deliberately describes those who pass by the robbed, bleeding, and injured man on the road as elite members of the very religious institution the lawyer represents. They are part of the human system which had, in top-down power fashion, exempted themselves from basic human compassion by dictating and justifying who was worthy of their precious time, energy, and resources both emotional and financial. In passing by the victim of assault and robbery lying on the road, these powerful figures of the religious institution were acting as they’d been taught and conditioned to behave by that system.

Jesus then chooses to describe the man who has compassion for the needy and helpless victim as a Samaritan. Samaritans were the enemy. Samaritans were excluded from the institutional religious system. The lawyer had been taught by the system to ignore, avoid, and treat Samaritans with prejudice, judgment, and contempt.

The Good Samaritan highlights Jesus’ ways, God’s ways. An individual acts with simply humility, compassion, mercy, and extravagant generosity towards another human being in need – even a stranger. This act is a bottom-up, subversive, human religious system disruptor, and it’s how Jesus intends His followers to change the world one humble act of charity at a time.

This bottom-up disruptor paradigm of God’s kingdom versus the world’s top-down power paradigm is highlighted once more by Jesus in today’s chapter. When the 36 advance teams return to Jesus, they report that they cast out demons and exercised power and authority over the powers of hell. Jesus quickly warns them not to let it go to their heads and infect their hearts. Rather, He tells them to humbly find joy that they have received love, mercy, and grace from God to be simple citizens and participants in God’s Kingdom.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself endeavoring to be a disruptor in this world. I don’t want to be a disruptor through power, politics, and protest. I want to be a disruptor Jesus’ way. I want to disrupt through bottom-up acts of love, humility, mercy, and generosity one needy person at a time.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Priests

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Priests (CaD Hos 4) – Wayfarer

“Because you have rejected knowledge,
    I also reject you as my priests”
Hosea 4:6 (NIV)

As I have continued to read and study the Great Story over my lifetime, I’ve come to the realization that I can’t truly understand or appreciate what God is doing unless I understand the concept of being a priest.

The concept of being a priest is one who spiritually stands in the gap between God and others. A priest is a go-between, a representative, and a spiritual conduit. If I look at how the priesthood works in the institutional church, the priest is the one who presides over the rites and sacraments. In the Roman tradition, it is through the priest that absolution for sin is granted; The priest being the conduit between the penitent and God, through which forgiveness flows.

But I find the concept of the “priesthood” far more expansive in God’s point-of-view than the narrow definition the institutional church has made it out to be. When God initiated His covenant with Abraham, He told Abraham that he would be the father of many nations through which “all the nations of the earth will be blessed” (Gen 18:18). When God led the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt, gave them the Law, and established them as a nation He called them “a kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6). In the early Jesus Movement, Peter wrote to his fellow believers and said:  “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:8) In John’s Revelation, he sees people of every tribe, nation, and language and is told that Jesus has “made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God.” (Revelation 5:10)

In each of these instances the priesthood is not a special ecclesiastical position held by a few educated and appointed men. Throughout the Great Story, God refers to the priesthood in terms of an entire group of people beginning with the Hebrew nation and then, through Jesus, expanding it to the spiritual nation of believers of every tribe, nation, and tongue.

This is not a small matter of definition. It gets to the heart of what God has always been doing, is currently doing, and will continue to do: Establishing an entire collective of people who will be a conduit through which those who are strangers to God can find their way to God.

In today’s chapter, God through Hosea tells the people of Israel that He is rejecting them, collectively, “as my priests.” Once again, God views the entire nation of Hebrews as His priests, not just the sons of Aaron and Levites who performed the rituals in the Temple.

When the Jesus Movement became the Holy Roman Empire in the fourth century, a change slowly took place in which the organism of the church became the organization known as the Church. The spiritual Jesus movement became a human empire, the most powerful political and religious institution in the western world. With it, the priesthood was transformed into an exclusive position for educated (or connected) men controlled by the institution. This paradigm was perpetuated through the centuries, even by the plethora of protestant denominations after the Reformation. It is still the pervasive paradigm, though I sense the winds of change shifting as the institutions have imploded during my lifetime.

In the quiet this morning, I am reminded that as a believer and follower of Jesus, I am a priest in the royal priesthood made up of all believers. Just as God called Hosea to be a living lesson as I described in yesterday’s post, God calls every follower of Jesus to live as priests – those who daily live in such a way that God’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control are evident to all through my life, words, relationships, and actions.

Throughout history, I’ve observed that the institutional church has separated every day believers from those in the institution’s clergy. We’ve made different spiritual “classes.” The clergy have all the spiritual power, authority, and responsibility, while the every day members and believers are, by-and-large, stripped of any spiritual power, authority, or responsibility. This was never God’s paradigm. As a disciple of Jesus, I am gifted, empowered, called, and responsible to be a priest, a living lesson. As Jesus put it, I am to live in such a way that others might “see my good works, and glorify my Father in heaven.”

And so, I enter another day, endeavoring to fulfill my role as a member of the royal priesthood of all believers.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Two Core Questions

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The Two Core Questions (CaD Job 15) – Wayfarer

What do you know that we do not know?
    What insights do you have that we do not have?
Job 15:9 (NIV)

Every morning when I peruse the news of the day, I observe corruption and deceit in the halls of human power brokers. Powerful and wealthy individuals rig systems for their personal gain of more power and wealth, then use their power to escape being investigated or justly held accountable. They make laws, regulations, and rules for the masses that they shamelessly break themselves. This is the way the world works, and it happens on both sides of the proverbial political aisle as well as in the c-suites of business and the not-so-hallowed halls of religion.

I share this rather cynical observation in response to today’s chapter, in which we begin a second round of discourses from Job’s three friends. Eli once again leads off and he chastises Job for questioning God or the suffering he is enduring. When Eli rhetorically asks Job, “What do you know that we do not know? What insights do you have that we do not have?” My spirit rushed to Job’s defense.

Suffering, Eli. Job knows suffering on a level you can’t even fathom. Turn and look at his emaciated body covered in festering sores. Have you suffered like this ever in your life, Eli? When did all of your children die in one day? Maybe cut your friend a little slack. You accuse Job of pride and lack of piety, but it’s you, Eli, who appear to lack humility, gentleness, and kindness in my eyes.

Eli goes on to basically repeat himself from his first discourse. He is stuck on one side of the Santa Clause: the wicked always suffer so Job must, therefore, be wicked in some way to be suffering this fate.

I don’t know what life was like in Job and Eli’s day, but in today’s world the wicked don’t always suffer. Perhaps there is negative spiritual, relational, and mental consequences of their sins, but I can point to plenty of examples of people who have done quite well in their wickedness from and earthly perspective. They certainly don’t suffer anything like what Job is experiencing.

One of the commentaries I read this morning observed that as long as Eli is myopically focused on his insistence that the wicked suffer God’s wrath, he avoids having to address Job’s core argument: sometimes the innocent suffer unjustly.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself pondering the two core questions that the story of Job has presented to humans for thousands of years. Why is it that sometimes the innocent suffer unjustly? Why is it that sometimes the wicked prosper unjustly? To deny the truth behind either question, as Eli does, one must put on mental blinders and ignore a host of examples from the daily headlines and all of human history.

I refuse to wear those blinders. I prefer to wrestle with the questions. I prefer to gently and kindly empathize with those who unjustly suffer. I prefer to stand and cry out for justice for the wicked who use their wealth and power to gain more wealth and power so as to escape accountability for their wickedness.

At the same time, I embrace the spiritual reality that Jesus taught. Being His obedient disciple does not exempt me from suffering, nor does it assure me of prosperity. Being an obedient disciple of Jesus teaches me to be content with my earthly circumstances and focus myself on those things that matter eternally. Paul listed them: faith, hope, and love. The most important being love.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Freedom and Sacrifice

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“But even if he does not [save us from the fire], we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
Daniel 3:18 (NIV)

Tomorrow is Independence Day here in the States. Wendy and I will be celebrating from the lake. Fireworks are legal here in the state of Missouri and it is always a night of loud and bright celebration as people light fireworks off of the end of their docks and over the cove. It’s a lot of fun right up to the time you’re ready to sleep.

I’ve lived my entire life in a nation where freedoms of speech and religion are protected and where life and liberty are held sacred. Despite this fact, I’ve observed along my life journey that there are subtle forms of social, political, religious, and cultural pressure to conform. I find it fascinating that I came of age at a time when religious conservatives wanted to dictate their particular morals and standards on the nation. Now, I find that it’s the other side who appear to want to demand wholesale adherence to a host of social, cultural, and political beliefs they hold sacred.

These examples notwithstanding, I have always found it a bit hard to fully understand or appreciate the predicament that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego find themselves in today’s chapter. They are exiles in a foreign land. They are minorities holding a very different set of beliefs than their captors. They have likely had to learn to live among society and culture that was very foreign to them while trying to maintain a  sense of their identity and faith.

King Nebuchadnezzar’s demand that all bow down to the statue he had erected was somewhat of a common practice in that ancient culture. It was a litmus test of obedience. Interestingly, as I read some commentary on today’s chapter, I found that scholars are split on whether the Hebrew trio would have been breaking the Law of Moses if they had chosen to bow down. This makes it an even more fascinating episode for me. If it wasn’t a black and white matter of religious law, but a gray area of their personal conscience before God, then their refusal to bow become even more meaningful.

In the quiet this morning I find myself thinking about my own personal beliefs. Where’s the line(s) that my conscience and my faith would not allow me to cross? I even find myself silently asking “For what am I willing to sacrifice my life?” On one hand, this feels like an overly dramatic and exaggerated question given the fact that I live in a land of freedom and I don’t anticipate ever having to face such a trial. On the other hand, I am fully aware that around the world people are facing this very real question on a daily basis. There continue to be dictators, tyrants, and regimes perfectly willing to execute those unwilling to bow to their political, cultural, social, and/or religious demands.

For what am I willing to sacrifice my life?

Today, I find myself whispering a prayer of gratitude for those men and women from every culture, ethnicity, religion, and political persuasion who sacrificed their lives across the centuries that I might walk my entire life journey on this earth without seriously having to answer that question.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Profane

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Profane (CaD Mal 1) – Wayfarer

“But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’”
Malachi 1:12 (NIV)

Having just finished the prophecies of Jeremiah and the events of Jerusalem’s destruction on this chapter-a-day journey, I’m going to travel in time 150 years to the future. I’m going to spend the next few days back in Jerusalem around 430 B.C.. Taking a quick view of the landscape, I notice the contrast to the rubble I left behind at the end of Jeremiah.

The walls of Jerusalem have been rebuilt. People are once again living inside the walls of the city. Many have returned to their homeland from exile in Babylon. It’s certainly not the splendor of Jerusalem in its glory years, but it’s home. There is a new Temple standing where Solomon’s Temple once stood. It, also, is not quite the same. Solomon’s Temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. This Temple is, well, functional if not awe-inspiring.

Jerusalem and the surrounding area is now a back-water province of the Persian Empire. There is a Governor in charge. The new temple was finished some 85 years earlier. The walls completed some 30 years earlier. The rebuilding was a monumental task carried out and documented by Ezra (a priest) and Nehemiah (a governor). Exiles returned. The city is back on the map! What a comeback story! Ezra and Nehemiah charged the people to follow the law of Moses, to be faithful in worshipping of God as prescribed in the Law of Moses.

So, as I look around the streets and listen to people talking in the courts of the temple, why is everyone so depressed, so cynical, so…negative?

Enter the prophet Malachi. He is the last of the ancient Hebrew prophets. His four chapters close the door on the period formally known as the Old Testament. After Malachi there will be four hundred years of political upheaval and prophetic silence until we hear the cries of a newborn baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.

Back to the temple courts around 430 B.C. Life is, more-or-less, working. The word functional keeps coming to mind, but not flourishing.

The design God gave the Hebrew people through Moses was an entire system designed to perpetuate life, health, and blessing throughout the entire community and beyond. The temple would be the center of the community. People would honor God, bring their first-fruit offerings and unblemished sacrifices to the temple. The priests and temple workers were provided for through these tithes and offerings and, in turn, blessed and served the people. When everyone puts their heart into it, it works relatively well.

Therein lies the problem.

Witness the people bringing a meager offering to the temple, certainly not the ten percent tithe the law requires. They also bring grain and animals for sacrifice, but that lamb is certainly not the shepherds best. The thing is half-staved and looks to be diseased. The priests go through the motions of accepting the sacrifice, but they certainly don’t want to feed themselves and their family with this farmer’s harvest dregs and diseased, meager livestock.

The system isn’t working. Everyone is going through the motions, but no one’s heart is in it. They hear the promises of Jeremiah and Isaiah of a blessed and abundant restoration under a glorious messiah, but that’s not what they’ve experienced. They’ve lost the faith. They’ve lost hope.

In God’s opening message through Malachi, God addresses the people’s cynical, defensive, and defiant attitudes.

“But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?'” (vs. 2)
“But you ask, ‘How have we showed contempt?'” (vs. 6)
“But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?'” (vs. 7)

God through Malachi goes on to tell the people that what they are doing amounts to “profanity” (vs. 12). To modern readers, “profanity” is synonymous with saying naughty words. But the concept of profanity is much deeper and is differentiated from obscenity or vulgarity. Profanity is when I empty something of its original meaning. If I take my family’s precious and priceless fine china and antique silver spoons and use them to feed a stray dog on the back patio, I’m profaning it. If I take the name of Jesus, who I have chosen to make my Lord and believe to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and believe that someday it will be at that name that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord, and I use his name as a common expletive when I’m pissed off at somebody or something, I’m profaning that name.

In the quiet this morning, I enter the time machine once again and fast forward to present day. I’m in a church building watching people walking in and out on a Sunday morning. I watch myself (welcome to the multi-verse!) entering and leaving worship. I compare myself in worship to my daily life, words, actions, relationships, and attitudes during the week. Is my heart and soul in it? Or, am I just going through the motions? Am I bringing my best to God, or just the leftovers of my time, energy, and resources? You know, the minimum required by my conscience to be free of any guilt and shame?

Does my daily life profane the very faith I profess to believe?

As God says through Malachi in today’s chapter: “I’d rather you just the shut the doors and not even pretend, than simply go through the motions because that’s profane.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The “Boney Finger”

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The "Boney Finger" (CaD Jer 12) – Wayfarer

Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
    Why do all the faithless live at ease?
You have planted them, and they have taken root;
    they grow and bear fruit.
You are always on their lips
    but far from their hearts.
Jeremiah 12:1b-2 (NIV)

Allow me to begin my post this morning with a confession. I’m not the best at picking up after myself. Wendy has often commented that she always knows where I am because I leave a trail of things laying around wherever I’ve been.

There is a lot of truth to what she says.

Along my life journey, I have observed it to be common for individuals to speak of others in broad, extreme generalities. This happens on multiple levels. I see it in the most intimate of interpersonal relationships as Wendy and I will, in our frustration, point out what the other “always” or “never” does whether it is in reference to a self-righteous accolade of what one does (for the other, of course) or pointing out with accusation what the other fails to do (for the accuser). My maternal grandparents used to call this particular form of marital accusation “pointing the boney finger.”

I find this “all-or-nothing” mentality arising regularly in conversation, especially when it comes to religion, politics, and cultural tension. The “boney finger” reaches out to paint a broad swath of humanity (often referred to as “those people”) in the extreme generalities of “always” and “never” or their synonymous counterparts. It hear it from individuals on both sides of various issues. I hear it from politicians on both sides of the aisle. I hear it from media on both sides of the political spectrum.

One of the unique characteristics of Jeremiah’s prophetic writings is the way that he unashamedly voices his complaints to God. While most of the prophets simply record the message God downloaded to them, Jeremiah is having a conversation. He typically doesn’t hold back.

In today’s chapter, Jerry is feeling the heat. In yesterday’s chapter, God reveals to the prophet that the people of a place called Anathoth were threatening to kill him if he didn’t shut his prophetic mouth. He begins today’s chapter with a complaint to God about “all” the faithless prospering and living at ease. He claims that God is “always” on these people’s lips but not in their hearts. Jerry’s solution is a very human one: “God, can you just make them go away.”

God’s response to Jeremiah could not have been heartening to the prophet. He begins by basically saying, “If you think it’s bad now, then fasten your seatbelt. It’s only going to get worse.”

As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, I realized that it shouldn’t surprise me that God told Jerry it would get worse. I have observed that the the attitudes and vocabulary of extreme generalities does not serve the cause of reconciliation, peace, or love. Rather, it serves to entrench people in their opposition of others, feed differences between individuals, and reinforce one’s self-righteous contemptuousness and bluster.

Which brings me back to Wendy, the person whom I love most. The attitudes and vocabulary of extreme generalities the we can (and do) throw at one another in our frustration could easily drive a wedge of bitterness and resentment between us. I have observed many spouses who end up in places of alienation as the boney fingers of “always” and “never” point ceaselessly at one another.

The antidote that Wendy and I have found is in learning to meta-communicate. In other words, let’s talk about how we’re talking to each another. In doing so, we have to be willing to step back from the line we have drawn in the relational sand. After a few deep breaths we come to admit that my boney finger accusations are coming out of my own frustration, anger, and resentment. We concede that our “always” and “never” is unfair despite the measure of truth we feel underneath it. We both acknowledge our love for one another and our desire for good for one another and our relationship. At that point, we can typically embrace the desire and commitment to modify our words or behavior for one another.

And, it works because we make sure it works both ways. Whether talking about interpersonal relationships or larger group relationships, I’ve observed that if only one side of the relational equation is expected to learn, communicate, step back, admit, concede, acknowledge, desire, commit, and modify, then any kind of reconciliation and mutually beneficial relationship is doomed. It takes two to Tango.

Which means, you’ll have to excuse me, I have a few things to pick-up before I enter my day! 😉

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Dictates Don’t Change Hearts

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Dictates Don't Change Hearts (CaD Jer 11) – Wayfarer

Then the Lord said to me, “There is a conspiracy among the people of Judah and those who live in Jerusalem. They have returned to the sins of their ancestors, who refused to listen to my words.
Jeremiah 11:9-10 (NIV)

The prophet Jeremiah rose to prominence during the reign of King Josiah of Judah. Have just trekked my way through 2 Kings on this chapter-a-day, I think a little context is in order as I read Jeremiah’s words this morning.

For more than a generation, along with King Josiah’s two most recent predecessors, the people of Judah had practiced polytheism. It’s not that they didn’t give a nod to YHWH, the God of Abraham, Moses, and David, but their hearts were divided with a plethora of idols and gods. Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem had become a spiritual marketplace with altars and shrines to various idols, astrological constellations, and pagan gods of the region.

During Josiah’s reign, the Law of Moses (that is, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), was discovered in a storage closet in the temple (See 2 Kings 22). The Law of Moses, which lays out the covenant between God and the Hebrew people, was given through Moses after God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt about 1,000 years before Josiah’s reign. It includes God’s Top Ten rules of life, the first two of which state no other gods, and no making of a graven image (a.k.a. an idol). But this had not been read, generally remembered, or publicly taught for at least 60 years and perhaps longer.

When Josiah heard the Law of Moses, he had the Law of Moses read publicly. He then called on the people to return to the God of their ancestors and enacted strict reforms. All pagan altars and shrines were removed from the temple and burned. All other gods were outlawed throughout Judah and destroyed. It was during this period of reform that a young Jeremiah found his way to Josiah’s royal court and began his prophetic ministry.

Along my life journey, and as I study history, I’ve observed that faith is a matter of the human heart. Governments and religious institutions (Judah’s monarchy was both) are technically kingdoms and institutions of this world. Despite the description of revival during Josiah’s reforms back in 2 Kings, it was not as if the people had any choice but to obey King Josiah’s commands and edicts. That’s how ancient monarchy’s worked. There was no representation, political parties, or recourse. You do what the King (and his army) tell you to do. So the entire nation went along with Josiah’s reforms because they had to do so, not because they all had a change of heart.

Knowing human behavior, I’m quite sure that the worship of Baal, Asherah, and other idols simply moved underground. You can legislate behavior, you can forcefully suppress dissent and demand obedience. I only have to look at any of a number of tyrannical political or religious system around the globe. However, a person’s heart can’t be changed with a government edict or an institutional dictate.

It is into this spiritual landscape that Jeremiah is writing and preaching in today’s chapter. We don’t know exactly when today’s prophetic word was given and delivered in Jeremiah’s ministry, but given the message I could easily place it towards the back-end of Josiah’s reign when people’s secret, underground worship of other gods is growing into a political hot-button. it’s obvious that Josiah’s dictated reforms have not changed the hearts of the Hebrew people. There is a “conspiracy” brewing to “return to the sins of their ancestors.” All of Josiah’s four successors will give in to the idolatrous desires of the people.

In the quiet this morning, I thought of the number of times in the Great Story that God reminds us that it’s my heart’s desire that He wants, not just my mindless observance of dictated moral or religious behaviors and traditions. If I truly give Jesus my heart, then I will be motivated to follow Him into the behaviors He exemplified and requests of me. If Jesus doesn’t have my heart, then all of my religious behavior is as empty as the idolatrous Hebrews who Jeremiah addresses in today’s chapter.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“Good Luck Charm” Religion

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"Good Luck Charm" Religion (CaD Jer 8) – Wayfarer

“How can you say, ‘We are wise,
    for we have the law of the Lord,’
when actually the lying pen of the scribes
    has handled it falsely?”
Jeremiah 8:8 (NIV)

A few years ago, I was working with a group of leaders who were tasked with teaching the book of 1 Corinthians to a larger gathering of Jesus’ followers. Before we began, I made a copy of the text without any of the chapter or verse numbers listed. I changed the type face to a font that resembled actual handwriting and printed it and handed it out. I encouraged the team to put themselves in the sandals of a leader of the Jesus followers in ancient Corinth and to read the words as they were originally intended: as a personal letter from their friend Paul. It was a transformative exercise for us.

One of the things that I have to always remember on this chapter-a-day journey is that the chapter and verse designations were not part of the original writings for centuries. Manuscripts as early as the 4th century AD contain some evidence of text being divided into chapters, but it wasn’t until the 12th century that Steven Langton added the chapter divisions and it wasn’t until 1551 that a man named Robert Estienne added the verse definitions. In 1560, the first translation of the entire Great Story referred to as the Geneva Bible, employed chapters and verses throughout. They’ve been used ever since.

Chapters and verses are an essential method for study, referencing, and cross-referencing. That’s why they remain. However, in my forty-plus years of studying, I’ve found that they can also hinder my reading, understanding, and interpretation. Chapters and verses gain individual attention apart from the context of the whole in which they were intended when written. Individual verses get pulled out of context. In other cases, like today’s chapter, the entire chapter is merely a piece of a larger message. I can easily read and contemplate just today’s chapter alone without connecting it to the chapters before and after into which they fit.

In today’s chapter, I noticed that the Hebrew people of Jeremiah’s day were saying, “We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord.” Something clicked and I remembered something I read in yesterday’s chapter: “Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” Both chapters are really part of one message or series of messages to be read together as a unit.

Taken together, I realize that there’s a theme in Jerry’s message that I would never see if I confine myself to each individual chapter and don’t consider them together as a whole. The Hebrew people of Jeremiah’s day had misplaced their trust. They trusted in Solomon’s Temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. They trusted in the “Law of the Lord” which had recently been rediscovered and made known to them. They had not, however, placed their trust in the God who gave them the Law, nor the God who inspired the building of the temple. They were treating the temple and the Law the same way they treated the other gods who they had worshipped, sometimes within the temple they were worshipping. The temple and the Law were basically good luck charms like all the other stars, idols, and pagan images they worshipped along with them.

In the quiet this morning, I thought about people whom I’ve met and known along my life journey whom I’ve observed treating their religion and their local church building, much like the people Jerry is addressing in his message, as good luck charms. When trouble comes in life (and trouble always comes in life – God even says so) I have observed their shock and anger. I have heard them express rage at God for not warding off their troubles and making their lives free of difficulty, pain, or sorrow. But God never promised that.

In fact, when Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit of their own free will, God said specifically that the consequences would include pain and conflict, sweat and toil, along with death and grief on our earthly journeys. Going to church and dressing my life up in religious traditions does not save me from any of those earthly realities. However, a trusting relationship with God gives me what I need to endure troubles in such a way that qualities like faith and perseverance, peace and maturity, along with joy and hope hone me to become more like Jesus, who endured more undeserved trouble than I could ever imagine and did so on my behalf.

Once again, a Bob Dylan lyric came to mind as I pondered these things this morning:

Trouble in the city, trouble in the farm
You got your rabbit’s foot, you got your good-luck charm
But they can’t help you none when there’s trouble…

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.